Transcriber's note:
Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed
in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page
breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page
number has been placed only at the start of that section.
CANADA
THE EMPIRE OF THE NORTH
Being the Romantic Story of the
New Dominion's Growth from
Colony to Kingdom
by
AGNES C. LAUT
Author of "The Conquest of the Great North-West" "Lords of the North,"
Etc.
[Frontispiece: Map of Western Canada]
Boston and London
Ginn and Company, Publishers
1909
Copyright, 1909, by Agnes C. Laut
Entered at Stationers' Hall
All Rights Reserved
PREFACE
To re-create the shadowy figures of the heroic past, to clothe the dead
once more in flesh and blood, to set the puppets of the play in life's
great dramas again upon the stage of action,--frankly, this may not be
formal history, but it is what makes the past most real to the present
day. Pictures of men and women, of moving throngs and heroic episodes,
stick faster in the mind than lists of governors and arguments on
treaties. Such pictures may not be history, but they breathe life into
the skeletons of the past.
Canada's past is more dramatic than any romance ever penned. The story
of that past has been told many times and in many volumes, with far
digressions on Louisiana and New England and the kingcraft of Europe.
The trouble is, the story has not been told in one volume. Too much
has been attempted. To include the story of New England wars and
Louisiana's pioneer days, the story of Canada itself has been either
cramped or crowded. To the eastern writer, Canada's history has been
the record of French and English conflict. To him there has been
practically no Canada west of the Great Lakes; and in order to tell the
intrigue of European tricksters, very often the writer has been
compelled to exclude the story of the Canadian people,--meaning by
people the breadwinners, the toilers, rather than the governing
classes. Similarly, to the western writer, Canada meant the Hudson's
Bay Company. As for the Pacific coast, it has been almost ignored in
any story of Canada.
Needless to say, a complete history of a country as vast as Canada,
whose past in every section fairly teems with action, could not be
crowded into one volume. To give even the story {iv} of Canada's most
prominent episodes and actors is a matter of rigidly excluding the
extraneous.
All that has been attempted here is such a story--_story, not
history_--of the romance and adventure in Canada's nation building as
will give the casual reader knowledge of the country's past, and how
that past led along a trail of great heroism to the destiny of a
Northern Empire. This volume is in no sense formal history. There
will be found in it no such lists of governors with dates appended, of
treaties with articles running to the fours and eights and tens, of
battles grouped with dates, as have made Canadian history a nightmare
to children.
It is only such a story as boys and girls may read, or the hurried
business man on the train, who wants to know "what was doing" in the
past; and it is mainly a story of men and women and things doing.
I have not given at the end of each chapter the list of authorities
customary in formal history. At the same time it is hardly necessary
to say I have dug most rigorously down to original sources for facts;
and of secondary authorities, from _Pierre Boucher, his Book_, to
modern reprints of _Champlain and L'Escarbot_, there are not any I have
not consulted more or less. Especially am I indebted to the
_Documentary History of New York_, sixteen volumes, bearing on early
border wars; to _Documents Relatifs à la Nouvelle France, Quebec_; to
the _Canadian Archives_ since 1886; to the special historical issues of
each of the eastern provinces; and to the monumental works of Dr.
Kingsford. Nearly all the places described are from frequent visits or
from living on the spot.
{v}
INTRODUCTION
"The Twentieth century belongs to Canada."
The prediction of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Premier of the Dominion, seems
likely to have bigger fulfillment than Canadians themselves realize.
What does it mean?
Canada stands at the same place in the world's history as England stood
in the Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth--on the threshold of her future as
a great nation. Her population is the same, about seven million. Her
mental attitude is similar, that of a great awakening, a consciousness
of new strength, an exuberance of energy biting on the bit to run the
race; mellowed memory of hard-won battles against tremendous odds in
the past; for the future, a golden vision opening on vistas too far to
follow. They dreamed pretty big in the days of Queen Elizabeth, but
they did n't dream big enough for what was to come; and they are
dreaming pretty big up in Canada to-day, but it is hard to forecast the
future when a nation the size of all Europe is setting out on the
career of her world history.
To put it differently: Canada's position is very much the same to-day
as the United States' a century ago. Her population is about seven
million. The population of the United States was seven million in
1810. One was a strip of isolated settlements north and south along
the Atlantic seaboard; the other, a string of provinces east and west
along the waterways that ramify from the St. Lawrence. Both possessed
and were flanked by vast unexploited territory the size of Russia; the
United States by a Louisiana, Canada by the Great Northwest. What the
Civil War did for the United States, Confederation did for the Canadian
provinces--welded them into a nation. The parallel need not be carried
farther. If the same development {vi} follows Confederation in Canada
as followed the Civil War in the United States, the twentieth century
will witness the birth and growth of a world power.
To no one has the future opening before Canada come as a greater
surprise than to Canadians themselves. A few years ago such a claim as
the Premier's would have been regarded as the effusions of the
after-dinner speaker. While Canadian politicians were hoping for the
honor of being accorded colonial place in the English Parliament, they
suddenly awakened to find themselves a nation. They suddenly realized
that history, and big history, too, was in the making. Instead of
Canada being dependent on the Empire, the Empire's most far-seeing
statesmen were looking to Canada for the strength of the British
Empire. No longer is there a desire among Canadians for place in the
Parliament at Westminster. With a new empire of their own to develop,
equal in size to the whole of Europe, Canadian public men realize they
have enough to do without taking a hand in European affairs.
As the different Canadian provinces came into Confederation they were
like beads on a string a thousand miles apart. First were the Maritime
Provinces, with western bounds touching the eastern bounds of Quebec,
but in reality with the settlements of New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia,
and Prince Edward Island separated from the settlements of Quebec by a
thousand miles of untracked forest. Only the Ottawa River separated
Quebec from Ontario, but one province was French, the other English,
aliens to each other in religion, language, and customs. A thousand
miles of rock-bound, winter-bound wastes lay between Ontario and the
scattered settlement of Red River in Manitoba. Not an interest was in
common between the little province of the middle west and her sisters
to the east. Then prairie land came for a thousand miles, and
mountains for six hundred miles, before reaching the Pacific province
of British Columbia, more completely cut off from other parts of Canada
than from Mexico or Panama. In fact, it would have been easier for
British Columbia to trade with Mexico and Panama than with the rest of
Canada.
{vii} To bind these far-separated patches of settlement, oases in a
desert of wilds, into a nation was the object of the union known as
Confederation. But a nation can live only as it trades what it draws
from the soil. Naturally, the isolated provinces looked for trade to
the United States, just across an invisible boundary. It seemed absurd
that the Canadian provinces should try to trade with each other, a
thousand miles apart, rather than with the United States, a stone's
throw from the door of each province. But the United States erected a
tariff wall that Canada could not climb. The struggling Dominion was
thrown solely on herself, and set about the giant task of linking the
provinces together, building railroads from Atlantic to Pacific, canals
from tide water to the Great Lakes. In actual cash this cost Canada
four hundred million dollars, not counting land grants and private
subscriptions for stock, which would bring up the cost of binding the
provinces together to a billion. This was a staggering burden for a
country with smaller population than Greater New York--a burden as big
as Japan and Russia assumed for their war; but, like war, the
expenditure was a fight for national existence. Without the railroads
and canals, the provinces could not have been bound together into a
nation.
These were Canada's pioneer days, when she was spending more than she
was earning, when she bound herself down to grinding poverty and big
risks and hard tasks. It was a long pull, and a hard pull; but it was
a pull altogether. That was Canada's seed time; this is her harvest.
That was her night work, when she toiled, while other nations slept;
now is the awakening, when the world sees what she was doing. Railroad
man, farmer, miner, manufacturer, all had the same struggle, the big
outlay of labor and money at first, the big risk and no profit, the
long period of waiting.
Canada was laying her foundations of yesterday for the superstructure
of prosperity to-day and to-morrow--the New Empire.
When one surveys the country as a whole, the facts are so big they are
bewildering.
{viii} In the first place, the area of the Dominion is within a few
thousand miles of as large as all Europe. To be more specific, you
could spread the surface of Italy and Spain and Turkey and Greece and
Austria over eastern Canada, and you would still have an area uncovered
in the east alone bigger than the German Empire. England spread flat
on the surface of Eastern Canada would just serve to cover the Maritime
Provinces nicely, leaving uncovered Quebec, which is a third bigger
than Germany; Ontario, which is bigger than France; and Labrador
(Ungava), which is about the size of Austria.
In the west you could spread the British Isles out flat, and you would
not cover Manitoba--with her new boundaries extending to Hudson Bay.
It would take a country the size of France to cover the province of
Saskatchewan, a country larger than Germany to cover Alberta, two
countries the size of Germany to cover British Columbia and the Yukon,
and there would still be left uncovered the northern half of the
West--an area the size of European Russia.
No Old World monarch from William the Conqueror to Napoleon could boast
of such a realm. People are fond of tracing ancestry back to feudal
barons of the Middle Ages. What feudal baron of the Middle Ages, or
Lord of the Outer Marches, was heir to such heritage as Canada may
claim? Think of it! Combine all the feudatory domains of the Rhine
and the Danube, you have not so vast an estate as a single western
province. Or gather up all the estates of England's midland counties
and eastern shires and borderlands, you have not enough land to fill
one of Canada's inland seas,--Lake Superior.
If there were a population in eastern Canada equal to France,--and
Quebec alone would support a population equal to France,--and in
Manitoba equal to the British Isles, and in Saskatchewan equal to
France, and in Alberta equal to Germany, and in British Columbia equal
to Germany,--ignoring Yukon, Mackenzie River, Keewatin, and Labrador,
taking only those parts of Canada where climate has been tested and
lands surveyed,--Canada would support two hundred million people.
{ix} The figures are staggering, but they are not half so improbable as
the actual facts of what has taken place in the United States.
America's population was acquired against hard odds. There were no
railroads when the movement to America began. The only ocean goers
were sailboats of slow progress and great discomfort. In Europe was
profound ignorance regarding America; to-day all is changed. Canada
begins where the United States left off. The whole world is gridironed
with railroads. Fast Atlantic liners offer greater comfort to the
emigrant than he has known at home. Ignorance of America has given
place to almost romantic glamour. Just when the free lands of the
United States are exhausted and the government is putting up bars to
keep out the immigrant, Canada is in a position to open her doors wide.
Less than a fortieth of the entire West is inhabited. Of the Great
Clay Belt of North Ontario only a patch on the southern edge is
populated. The same may be said of the Great Forest Belt of Quebec.
These facts are the magnet that will attract the immigrant to Canada.
The United States wants no more immigrants.
And the movement to Canada has begun. To her shores are thronging the
hosts of the Old World's dispossessed, in multitudes greater than any
army that ever marched to conquest under Napoleon. When the history of
America comes to be written in a hundred years, it will not be the
record of a slaughter field with contending nations battling for the
mastery, or generals wading to glory knee-deep in blood. It will be an
account of the most wonderful race movement, the most wonderful
experiment in democracy the world has known.
The people thronging to Canada for homes, who are to be her nation
builders, are people crowded out of their home lands, who had n't room
for the shoulder swing manhood and womanhood need to carve out
honorable careers. Look at them in the streets of London, or Glasgow,
or Dublin, or Berlin, these _émigrés_, as the French called their
royalists, whom revolution drove from home, and I think the word
_émigré_ is a truer description of the newcomer to Canada than the word
"emigrant." They are {x} poor, they are desperately poor, so poor that
a month's illness or a shut-down of the factory may push them from
poverty to the abyss. They are thrifty, but can neither earn nor save
enough to feel absolutely sure that the hollow-eyed specter of Want may
not seize them by the throat. They are willing to work, so eager to
work that at the docks and the factory gates they trample and jostle
one another for the chance to work. They are the underpinnings, the
underprops of an old system, these _émigrés_, by which the masses were
expected to toil for the benefit of the classes.
"It's all the average man or woman is good for," says the Old Order,
"just a day's wage representing bodily needs."
"Wait," says the New Order. "Give him room! Give him an opportunity!
Give him a full stomach to pump blood to his muscles and life to his
brain! Wait and see! If he fails _then_, let him drop to the bottom
of the social pit without stop of poorhouse or help!"
A penniless immigrant boy arrives in New York. First he peddles
peanuts, then he trades in a half-huckster way whatever comes to hand
and earns profits. Presently he becomes a fur trader and invests his
savings in real estate. Before that man dies, he has a monthly income
equal to the yearly income of European kings. That man's name was John
Jacob Astor.
Or a young Scotch boy comes out on a sailing vessel to Canada. For a
score of years he is an obscure clerk at a distant trading post in
Labrador. He comes out of the wilds to take a higher position as land
commissioner. Presently he is backing railroad ventures of tremendous
cost and tremendous risk. Within thirty years from the time he came
out of the wilds penniless, that man possesses a fortune equal to the
national income of European kingdoms. The man's name is Lord
Strathcona.
Or a hard-working coal miner emigrates to Canada. The man has brains
as well as hands. Other coal miners emigrate at the same time, but
this man is as keen as a razor in foresight and care. From coal miner
he becomes coal manager, from manager {xi} operator, from operator
owner, and dies worth a fortune that the barons of the Middle Ages
would have drenched their countries in blood to win. The man's name is
James Dunsmuir.
Or it is a boy clerking in a departmental store. He emigrates. When
he goes back to England it is to marry a lady in waiting to the Queen.
He is now known as Lord Mount-Stephen.
What was the secret of the success? Ability in the first place, but in
the second, opportunity; opportunity and room for shoulder swing to
show what a man can do when keen ability and tireless energy have
untrammeled freedom to do their best.
Examples of the _émigrés'_ success could be multiplied. It is more
than a mere material success; it is eternal proof that, given a fair
chance and a square deal and shoulder swing, the boy born penniless can
run the race and outstrip the boy born to power.
"Have you, then, no _menial_ classes in Canada?" asked a member of the
Old Order.
"No, I'm thankful to say," said I.
"Then _who_ does the work?"
"The workers."
"But what's the difference?"
"Just this: your menial of the Old Country is the child of a menial,
whose father before him was a menial, whose ancestors were in servile
positions to other people back as far as you like to go,--to the time
when men were serfs wearing an iron collar with the brand of the lord
who owned them. With us no stigma is attached to work. _Your_ menial
expects to be a menial all his life. With our worker, just as sure as
the sun rises and sets, if he continues to work and is no fool, he will
rise to earn a competency, to improve himself, to own his own labor, to
own his own home, to hire the labor of other men who are beginners as
he once was himself."
"Then you have no social classes?"
"Lots. The _ups_, who have succeeded; and the _half-way ups_, who are
succeeding; and the _beginners_, who are going to succeed; and the
_downs_, who never try. And as success doesn't necessarily mean money,
but doing the best at whatever one tries, {xii} you can see that the
_ups_ and the _halfway ups_, and the _beginners_ and the _downs_ have
each their own classes of special workers."
"That," she answered, "is not democracy; it is revolution." She was
thinking of those Old World hard-and-fast divisions of society into
royalty, aristocracy, commons, peasantry.
"It is not revolution," I explained. "It is rebirth! When you send
your _émigré_ out to us, he is a made-over man."
But it is not given to all _émigré's_ to become great capitalists or
great leaders. Some who have the opportunity have not the ability, and
the majority would not, for all the rewards that greatness offers,
choose careers that entail long years of nerve-wracking, unflagging
labor. But on a minor scale the same process of making over takes
place. One case will illustrate.
Some years before immigration to Canada had become general, two or
three hundred Icelanders were landed in Winnipeg destitute. From some
reason, which I have forgotten,--probably the quarantine of an
immigrant,--the Icelanders could not be housed in the government
immigration hall. They were absolutely without money, household goods,
property of any sort except clothing, and that was scant, the men
having but one suit of the poorest clothes, the women thin homespun
dresses so worn one could see many of them had no underwear. The
people represented the very dregs of poverty. Withdrawing to the
vacant lots in the west end of Winnipeg,--at that time a mere
town,--the newcomers slept for the first nights, herded in the rooms of
an Icelander opulent enough to have rented a house. Those who could
not gain admittance to this house slept under the high board sidewalks,
then a feature of the new town. I remember as a child watching them
sit on the high sidewalk till it was dark, then roll under.
Fortunately it was summer, but it was useless for people in this
condition to go bare to the prairie farm. To make land yield, you must
have house and barns and stock and implements, and I doubt if these
people had as much as a jackknife. I remember how two or three of the
older women used to sit crying each night in despair till they
disappeared in the crowded house, fourteen or {xiii} twenty of them to
a room. Within a week, the men were all at work sawing wood from door
to door at a dollar and a half a cord the women out by the day washing
at a dollar a day. Within a month they had earned enough to buy lumber
and tar paper. Tar-papered shanties went up like mushrooms on the
vacant lots. Before winter each family had bought a cow and chickens.
I shall not betray confidence by telling where the cow and chickens
slept. Those immigrants were not desirable neighbors. Other people
moved hastily away from the region. Such a condition would not be
tolerated now, when there are spacious immigration halls and sanitary
inspectors to see that cows and people do not house under the same
roof. What with work and peddling milk, by spring the people were able
to move out on the free prairie farms. To-day those Icelanders own
farms clear of debt, own stock that would be considered the possession
of a capitalist in Iceland, and have money in the savings banks. Their
sons and daughters have had university educations and have entered
every avenue of life, farming, trading, practicing medicine, actually
teaching English in English schools. Some are members of Parliament.
It was a hard beginning, but it was a rebirth to a new life. They are
now among the nation builders of the West.
But it would be a mistake to conclude that Canada's nation builders
consisted entirely of poor people. The race movement has not been a
leaderless mob. Princes, nobles, adventurers, soldiers of fortune,
were the pathfinders who blazed the trail to Canada. Glory, pure and
simple, was the aim that lured the first comers across the trackless
seas. Adventurous young aristocrats, members of the Old Order, led the
first nation builders to America, and, all unconscious of destiny, laid
the foundations of the New Order. The story of their adventures and
work is the history of Canada.
It is a new experience in the world's history, this race movement that
has built up the United States and is now building up Canada. Other
great race movements have been a tearing down of high places, the
upward scramble of one class on the {xiv} backs of the deposed class.
Instead of leveling down, Canada's nation building is leveling up.
This, then, is the empire--the size of all the nations in Europe,
bigger than Napoleon's wildest dreams of conquest--to which Canada has
awakened.[1]
[1]COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF AREAS OF CANADA AND EUROPE
Canada . . 3,750,000 square miles Europe . . 3,797,410 square miles
Maritime Provinces Square Miles Square Miles
Nova Scotia . . . . . 20,600 England . . . . . 50,867
Prince Edward Island 2,000 Germany . . . . . 208,830
New Brunswick . . . . 28,200 France . . . . . 204,000
------ Italy . . . . . . 110,000
50,800 Spain . . . . . . 197,000
Quebec . . . . . . . . 347,350 Austria and Hungary 241,000
Ontario . . . . . . . . 222,000 Russia in Europe 2,000,000
Manitoba
Saskatchewan 204,000
Alberta . . . . . . . . 350,000
British Columbia . . . 383,000
Unorganized Territory of
Keewatin . . . . . . 756,000
Yukon . . . . . . . . 200,000
MacKenzie River and
Ungava . . . . . . 1,000,000
COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF POPULATION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES
United States Canada
In 1800 . . . 5,000,000 In 1881 . . . 4,300,000
" 1810 . . . 7,000,000 " 1891 . . . 5,000,000
" 1820 . . . 9,600,000 " 1901 . . . 5,500,000
" 1830 . . . 12,800,000 " 1906 . . . 6,500,000
It will be noticed that for twenty years Canada's population becomes
almost stagnant. The reason for this will be found as the story of
Canada is related. If she keeps up the increase at the pace she has
now set, or at the rate the United States' population went ahead during
the same period of industrial development, the results can be forecast
from the following table:
United States in 1840 . . . . . . 17,000,000
" " " 1850 . . . . . . 23,000,000
" " " 1860 . . . . . . 31,000,000
" " " 1870 . . . . . . 38,000,000
" " " 1880 . . . . . . 50,000,000
" " " 1890 . . . . . . 63,000,000
" " " 1900 . . . . . . 85,000,000
{xv} A few years ago, when talking to a leading editor of Canada, I
chanced to say that I did not think Canadians had at that time awakened
to their future. The editor answered that he was afraid I had
contracted the American disease of "bounce" through living in the
United States; to which I retorted that if Canadians could catch the
same disease and accomplish as much by it in the twentieth century as
Americans had in the nineteenth, it would be a good thing for the
country. It is wonderful to have witnessed the complete face-about of
Canadian public opinion in the short space of six years, this editor
shouting as loud as any of his exuberant brethren. Still, as the
outlook in Canadian affairs may be regarded as flamboyant, it is worth
while quoting the comment of the most critical and conservative
newspaper in the world,--the London _Times_. The _Times_ says:
"Without doubt the expansion of Canada is the greatest political event
in the British Empire to-day. The empire is face to face with
development which makes it impossible for indefinite maintenance of the
present constitutional arrangements."
Regarding the Iceland immigrants, to whom reference is made, I recently
met in London a famed traveler, who was in Iceland when the people were
setting out for Canada, Mrs. Alec. Tweedie. She explains in her book
how these people were absolutely poverty-stricken when they left
Iceland. In fact, the sufferings endured the first year in Winnipeg
were mild compared to their privations in Iceland before they sailed.
The explanations of Canada's hard times from Confederation to 1898--say
from 1871, when all the provinces had really gone into Confederation,
to 1897, when the Yukon boom poured gold into the country--can be
figured out. Of a population of 3,000,000, four fifths need not be
counted as taxpayers, as they include women, children, clerks, farmers'
help, domestic help,--classes who pay no taxes but the indirect duty on
clothes they wear and food they eat. This practically means that the
billion-dollar burden of making the ideal of Confederation into a
reality by building railroads and canals was borne by 600,000 people,
which means again a large quota per man to the public treasury. People
forget that you can't take more out of the public treasury than you put
into it, that it is n't like an artesian well, self-supplied, and the
truth is, at this period Canadians were paying more into the public
treasury than they could afford,--more than the investment was bringing
them in.
{xvii}
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. FROM 1000 TO 1600 . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. FROM 1600 TO 1607 . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
III. FROM 1607 TO 1635 . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
IV. FROM 1635 TO 1666 . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
V. FROM 1635 TO 1650 . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
VI. FROM 1650 TO 1672 . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
VII. FROM 1672 TO 1688 . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
VIII. FROM 1679 TO 1713 . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
IX. FROM 1686 TO 1698 . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
X. FROM 1698 TO 1713 . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
XI. FROM 1713 TO 1755 . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
XII. FROM 1756 TO 1763 . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
XIII. FROM 1763 TO 1812 . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
XIV. FROM 1812 TO 1820 . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
XV. FROM 1812 TO 1846 . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
XVI. FROM 1820 TO 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
{xix}
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
PAGE
MAP OF WESTERN CANADA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
VIKING SHIP RECENTLY DISCOVERED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
After a photograph of the Viking Ship at Sandefjord, Norway.
MAP SHOWING DIVISION OF THE NEW WORLD BETWEEN SPAIN AND
PORTUGAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
A TYPICAL "HOLE IN THE WALL" AT "KITTY VIDDY," NEAR
ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
From a photograph.
SEBASTIAN CABOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
After the portrait attributed to Holbein.
JACQUES CARTIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
After the portrait at St. Malo, France, with signature.
WHERE THE FISHER HAMLETS NOW NESTLE, NEWFOUNDLAND . . . . . . 9
From a photograph.
ANCIENT HOCHELAGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
After a cut in the third volume of Ramusio's _Raccolta_,
Venice, 1565.
THE "DAUPHIN MAP" OF CANADA, _CIRCA_ 1543, SHOWING CARTIER'S
DISCOVERIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
QUEEN ELIZABETH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
After the ermine portrait in Hatfield House, with signature.
THE BOYHOOD OF GILBERT AND RALEIGH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
From the painting by Sir John Millais.
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
After the print in Holland's _Herwologia-Anglica_, 1620.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
After the portrait in the possession of the Duchess of Dorset.
AT EASTERN ENTRANCE TO HUDSON STRAITS . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
From a photograph by Dominion Geological Survey.
HUDSON COAT OF ARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
From Lenox Collection, New York City.
THE FANTASTIC ROCKS OF GASPÉ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
From a photograph.
{xx}
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
After the Moncornet portrait, with signature.
PORT ROYAL OR ANNAPOLIS BASIN, 1609 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
From Lescarbot's map.
BUILDINGS ON STE. CROIX ISLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
From _Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain_, Paris, 1613.
PORT ROYAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
From the same.
TADOUSSAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
From the same.
DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
From the same.
THE ONONDAGA FORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
From the same.
VIEW OF QUEBEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
From the same.
QUEBEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
From the same.
SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
After an engraved portrait by Marshall.
MAP SHOWING LA TOUR'S POSSESSIONS IN ACADIA . . . . . . . . . 64
CARDINAL RICHELIEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
After the portrait by Philippe de Champaigne
MAP OF ANNAPOLIS BASIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
MADAME DE LA PELTRIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
After a picture in the Ursuline Convent, Quebec.
PIERRE LE JEUNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
From an engraving in Winsor's America, after an old print.
GEORGIAN BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
From a photograph by A. G. Alexander.
BRÉBEUF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
From a bust in silver at Quebec.
REMNANTS OF WALLS OF FORT ST. MARY ON CHRISTIAN ISLAND
IN 1891 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
After a photograph reproduced in _Ontario Historical
Society Papers and Records_.
MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES, SHOWING THE TERRITORY OF THE
JESUIT HURON MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Bellin's map, 1744.
A CANADIAN ON SNOWSHOES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale_,
Paris, 1753.
{xxi}
SAUSON'S MAP, 1656 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
TITLE-PAGE--JESUIT RELATION OF 1662-1663 . . . . . . . . . 111
THE JESUIT MAP OF LAKE SUPERIOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
From the Relation, of 1670-1671.
CHARLES II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
After the miniature portrait by Cooper, with signature.
PLAN OF MONTREAL IN 1672 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
From _Quebec Historical Society Papers and Records_.
LA SALLE'S HOUSE NEAR MONTREAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
From a photograph.
KITCHEN, CHÂTEAU DE RAMEZAY, MONTREAL . . . . . . . . . . . 120
From a photograph.
LAVAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
After the portrait in Laval University, Quebec.
A MAP IN THE RELATION OF 1662-1663 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
GALINÉE'S MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES, 1669 . . . . . . . . . . 129
ROBERT DE LA SALLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
After an engraved portrait said to be preserved
in the _Bibliothèque de Rouen_, with signature.
OLD PLAN OF FORT FRONTENAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
From _Mémoirs sur le Canada_, Quebec, 1873.
THE BUILDING OF THE _GRIFFON_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
From Father Hennepin's _Nouvelle Découverte_, Amsterdam, 1704.
PRINCE RUPERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
After the painting by Sir P. Lely.
MAP OF HUDSON BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
CONTEMPORARY FRENCH MAP OF HUDSON BAY AND VICINITY . . . . 155
From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale_.
LE MOYNE D'IBERVILLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
After a portrait in Margry's _Découvertes Établissemens_.
FORT FRONTENAC AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY . . . . . . . . . . 164
From _The London Magazine_, 1758.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
After the portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, with signature.
QUEBEC, 1689 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale_.
FRENCH SOLDIER OF THE PERIOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
After a cut in Massachusetts Archives, Documents
collected in France, 111, 3.
SIR WILLIAM PHIPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
After an accepted likeness reproduced
in Winsor's _America_.
{xxii}
COUNT FRONTENAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
From the statue by Hébert at Quebec.
CASTLE ST. LOUIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
After a cut in Hawkins' _Pictures of Quebec_, Quebec, 1834.
ATTACK ON QUEBEC, 1690 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
From La Hontan's _Mémoires_, 1709.
CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
From Sulte's _Canadiens Français_, viii.
PLAN OF QUEBEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
From Franquelin, 1683.
LANDING OF IBERVILLE'S MEN AT PORT NELSON . . . . . . . . . 186
From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale_.
CAPTURE OF FORT NELSON BY THE FRENCH . . . . . . . . . . . 187
From the same.
CONTEMPORARY MAP, 1689 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
From La Hontan.
HERTEL DE ROUVILLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
After a portrait in Daniel's _Nos Gloires Nationales_.
CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF PORT ROYAL BASIN . . . . . . . . . . . 199
From Bellin's map, 1744.
PAUL MASCARENE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
After a portrait in Savary's edition
of Calnek's _Annapolis_.
LA VÉRENDRYE'S FORTS AND THE RIVER OF THE WEST . . . . . . 207
After Jeffery's map, 1762.
MAP PUBLISHED IN PARIS IN 1752 SHOWING THE SUPPOSED
SEA OF THE WEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
From the Mémoire presented to the Academy
of Sciences at Paris by Buache, August, 1752.
MAP SHOWING THE SUPPOSED SEA OF THE WEST, WITH APPROACHES
TO THE MISSISSIPPI AND GREAT LAKES, PARIS, 1755 . . . . . 211
From the same.
WILLIAM PEPPERRELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
After the portrait by Smibert.
RUINS OF THE FORTIFICATIONS AT LOUISBURG . . . . . . . . . . 219
From a recent photograph.
CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF THE ATTACK ON LOUISBURG . . . . . . . . 221
After a plan reproduced in Winsor's _America_.
FORT HALIFAX, 1755 (Restoration) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF OSWEGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
From Smith's _History of the Province of New York_.
GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE OF VIRGINIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
After a portrait by Ramsay.
{xxiii}
TITLE-PAGE OF WASHINGTON'S JOURNAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
A SKETCH OF THE FIELD OF BATTLE AT BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT . . . . 229
From a contemporary manuscript in the Library
of Harvard University.
PLAN OF FORT BEAUSEJOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
From Mante's _History of the Late War in North America_.
GENERAL MONCKTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
After a mezzotint in the Library of the
American Antiquarian Society.
GENERAL JOHN WINSLOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
After the portrait in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
MAP OF ACADIA AND THE ADJACENT ISLANDS, 1755 . . . . . . . . 237
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
After the portrait by Adams.
MAP OF THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
From _Documentary History of New York_.
RUINS OF CHÂTEAU BIGOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
From a photograph by Captain Wurtelle.
PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
From a photograph.
QUEBEC, CHÂTEAU FRONTENAC AND THE CITADEL . . . . . . . . . 246
From a photograph.
THE EARL OF LOUDON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
After the portrait by Ramsay.
BOSCAWEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
After the portrait by Reynolds.
THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG, 1758 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
From a picture in the Lenox Collection,
New York Public Library.
AMHERST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
After the portrait by Reynolds.
THE COUNTRY ROUND TICONDEROGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
From _Documentary History of New York_.
GENERAL JAMES WOLFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
After the engraved portrait by Houstin.
BOUGAINVILLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
After a cut in Bounechose's _Montcalm_.
THE SITE OF QUEBEC AND THE GROUND OCCUPIED
DURING THE SIEGE OF 1759 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
After a plan in _The Universal Magazine_,
London, December, 1859.
LOUIS JOSEPH, MARQUIS DE MONTCALM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
After the portrait in the possession of his descendants.
DEATH OF WOLFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
From the painting by West.
{xxiv}
MAJOR ROBERT ROGERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
After a mezzotint by an unknown engraver.
Published in London, October 1, 1776
NORTH AMERICA AT THE CLOSE OF THE FRENCH WARS, 1763 . . . . 278
GENERAL MURRAY, FIRST GOVERNOR OF QUEBEC . . . . . . . . . 280
After the portrait by Ramsay.
SETTLEMENTS ON THE DETROIT RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
From Parkman's _Conspiracy of Pontiac_.
BOUQUET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
After the portrait by West.
RETURN OF THE ENGLISH CAPTIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
After the painting by West.
MONTREAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
After a print in the New York Public Library.
SAMUEL HEARNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
After an engraving published in 1796.
GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
After the painting by Chappel.
MAP OF QUEBEC DURING THE SIEGE OF CONGRESS TROOPS . . . . . 303
SIR GUY CARLETON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
After an engraving in _The Political Magazine_, June, 1782.
BENEDICT ARNOLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
After the portrait by Tate.
GENERAL HALDIMAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
After the portrait by Reynolds.
JOSEPH BRANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
After the portrait by Ames.
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR SIMCOE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
After an engraving in Scadding's _Toronto of Old_.
CAPTAIN COOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
After the portrait by Dauce.
FORT CHURCHILL AS IT WAS IN 1777 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
After a print in the _European Magazine_, June, 1797.
TOTEM POLES, BRITISH COLUMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
From a photograph.
CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
After the portrait by Abbott.
NOOTKA SOUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
From an engraving in Vancouver's _Journal_.
FORT CHIPPEWYAN, ATHABASCA LAKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
From a recent photograph.
{xxv}
ALEXANDER MACKENZIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
After the portrait by Lawrence.
CAUSE OF A PORTAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
From a photograph.
SIMON FRASER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
From a likeness in Morice's _The History
of the Northern Interior of British Columbia_.
ASTORIA IN 1813 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
From a cut in Franchere's _Narrative of a Voyage_.
MAP OF WEST COAST, SHOWING THE OGDEN AND ROSS
EXPLORATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
From Laut's _Conquest of the Great North West_.
GENERAL SIR JAMES HENRY CRAIG, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
1807-1811 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
WILLIAM HULL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
After the portrait by Stuart, with autograph.
MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS
ON THE DETROIT RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON
THE NIAGARA FRONTIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
GENERAL BROCK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
After a portrait in the possession of
J. A. Macdonell Esq., Alexandria, Ontario.
BROCK MONUMENT, QUEENSTON HEIGHTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
From a photograph.
YORK (TORONTO) HARBOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
From Bouchette's _British Dominions in North America_.
FITZGIBBONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
After a photograph reproduced in _Proceedings
and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_, 1900.
LAURA SECORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
From _Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records_.
TWO VIEWS OF THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE . . . . . . . . . . . 364
From prints published in 1815
TECUMSEH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
After the drawing by Pierre Le Drie.
DE SALABERRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
After a portrait in Fannings Taylor's _Portraits of
British Americans_.
SIR GORDON DRUMMOND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
MONUMENT AT LUNDY'S LANE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
From a photograph.
{xxvi}
SELKIRK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
From Ontario Archives Collection.
NELSON AND HAYES RIVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
From a map in Robson's _Hudson Bay_.
FORT GARRY, RED RIVER SETTLEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
From Ross' _Red River Settlement_.
FORT DOUGLAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
After an old engraving.
SKETCH OF THE CITY OF WINNIPEG, SHOWING THE SITES
OF THE EARLY FORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
From Manitoba Historical Society
RED RIVER SETTLEMENT, 1816-1820 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
After a map in Amos' _Report of the Trials Relative
to the Destruction of the Earl of Selkirk's Settlement_.
MONUMENT TO COMMEMORATE THE MASSACRE OF SEVEN OAKS . . . . . 397
After a sketch.
TRACKING ON ATHABASCA RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
From a photograph.
PLANS OF YORK AND PRINCE OF WALES FORTS . . . . . . . . . . 405
From a plate in Robson's _Hudson Bay_.
SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, GOVERNOR OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1820 406
JOHN MCLOUGHLIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
After a likeness in Laut's _Conquest
of the Great Northwest_.
SIR JOHN SHERBROOKE, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1816-1818 413
After an engraving at Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario.
THE FOURTH DUKE OF RICHMOND, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
1818-1819 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
After an engraving at Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario.
WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
After a likeness in Lindsey's _Life and Times of Mackenzie_.
ALLAN McNAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
After the portrait in the Speaker's Chambers, Ottawa.
LOUIS J. PAPINEAU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
After a likeness in Fannings Taylor's _British Americans_.
SIR JOHN COLBORNE, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1838-1841 . . 430
After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
LORD DURHAM, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER TO CANADA, 1838 . . . . . 432
After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
JOHN A. MACDONALD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
From a photograph.
FATHERS OF CONFEDERATION, 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
From the painting by Hariss.
CANADA
THE EMPIRE OF THE NORTH
CHAPTER I
FROM 1000 TO 1600
Early voyages to America--Voyages of the Cabots--The French fisher
folk--Cartier's first voyage--Cartier's second voyage--Cartier's third
voyage--Marguerite Roberval
Who first found Canada? As many legends surround the beginnings of
empire in the North as cling to the story of early Rome.
When Leif, son of Earl Eric, the Red, came down from Greenland with his
Viking crew, which of his bearded seamen in Arctic furs leaned over the
dragon prow for sight of the lone new land, fresh as if washed by the
dews of earth's first morning? Was it Thorwald, Leif's brother, or the
mother of Snorri, first white child born in America, who caught first
glimpse through the flying spray of Labrador's domed hills,--"Helluland,
place of slaty rocks"; and of Nova Scotia's wooded meadows,--"Markland";
and Rhode Island's broken vine-clad shore,--"Vinland"? The question
cannot be answered. All is as misty concerning that Viking voyage as the
legends of old Norse gods.
Leif, the Lucky, son of Earl Eric, the outlaw, coasts back to Greenland
with his bold sea-rovers. This was in the year 1000.
For ten years they came riding southward in their rude-planked ships of
the dragon prow, those Norse adventurers; and Thorwald, Leif's brother,
is first of the pathfinders in America to lose his life in battle with
the "Skraelings" or Indians. Thornstein, another brother, sails south in
1005 with Gudrid, his wife; but a roaring nor'easter tears the piping {2}
sails to tatters, and Thornstein dies as his frail craft scuds before the
blast. Back comes Gudrid the very next year, with a new husband and a
new ship and two hundred colonists to found a kingdom in the "Land of the
Vine." At one place they come to rocky islands, where birds flock in
such myriads it is impossible to land without trampling nests. Were
these the rocky islands famous for birds in the St. Lawrence? On another
coast are fields of maize and forests entangled with grapevines. Was
this part of modern New England? On Vinland--wherever it was--Gudrid,
the Norse woman, disembarks her colonists. All goes well for three
years. Fish and fowl are in plenty. Cattle roam knee-deep in pasturage.
Indians trade furs for scarlet cloth and the Norsemen dole out their
barter in strips narrow as a little finger; but all beasts that roam the
wilds are free game to Indian hunters. The cattle begin to disappear,
the Indians to lurk armed along the paths to the water springs. The
woods are full of danger. Any bush may conceal painted foe. Men as well
as cattle lie dead with telltale arrow sticking from a wound. The
Norsemen begin to hate these shadowy, lonely, mournful forests. They
long for wild winds and trackless seas and open world. Fur-clad, what do
they care for the cold? Greenland with its rolling drifts is safer
hunting than this forest world. What glory, doomed prisoners between the
woods and the sea within the shadow of the great forests and a great
fear? The smell of wildwood things, of flower banks, of fern mold, came
dank and unwholesome to these men. Their {3} nostrils were for the whiff
of the sea; and every sunset tipped the waves with fire where they longed
to sail. And the shadow of the fear fell on Gudrid. Ordering the
vessels loaded with timber good for masts and with wealth of furs, she
gathered up her people and led them from the "Land of the Vine" back to
Greenland.
[Illustration: VIKING SHIP RECENTLY DISCOVERED.]
Where was Vinland? Was it Canada? The answer is unknown. It was south
of Labrador. It is thought to have been Rhode Island; but certainly,
passing north and south, the Norse were the first white men to see Canada.
Did some legend, dim as a forgotten dream, come down to Columbus in 1492
of the Norsemen's western land? All sailors of Europe yearly fished in
Iceland. Had one of Columbus's crew heard sailor yarns of the new land?
If so, Columbus must have thought the new land part of Asia; for ever
since Marco Polo had come from China, Europe had dreamed of a way to Asia
by the sea. What with Portugal and Spain dividing the New World, all the
nations of Europe suddenly awakened to a passion for discovery.
[Illustration: DIVISION OF THE NEW WORLD BETWEEN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.]
There were still lands to the north, which Portugal and Spain had not
found,--lands where pearls and gold might abound. At Bristol in England
dwelt with his sons John Cabot, the Genoese master mariner, well
acquainted with Eastern-trade. Henry VII commissions him on a voyage of
discovery--an empty honor, the King to have one fifth of all profit,
Cabot to bear all expense. The _Matthew_ ships from Bristol with a crew
of eighteen in May of 1497. North and west sails the tumbling craft two
thousand miles. Colder grows the air, stiffer the breeze in the bellying
sails, till the _Matthew's_ crew are shivering on decks amid fleets of
icebergs that drift from Greenland in May and June. This is no realm of
spices and gold. Land looms through the mist the last week in June, {4}
rocky, surf-beaten, lonely as earth's ends, with never a sound but the
scream of the gulls and the moan of the restless water-fret along endless
white reefs. Not a living soul did the English sailors see. Weak in
numbers, disappointed in the rocky land, they did not wait to hunt for
natives. An English flag was hastily unfurled and possession taken of
this Empire of the North for England. The woods of America for the first
time rang to the chopper. Wood and water were taken on, and the
_Matthew_ had anchored in Bristol by the first week of August. Neither
gold nor a way to China had Cabot found; but he had accomplished three
things: he had found that the New World was not a part of Asia, as Spain
thought; he had found the continent itself; and he had given England the
right to claim new dominion.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL "HOLE IN THE WALL" AT "KITTY VIDDY," NEAR ST.
JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND]
England went mad over Cabot. He was granted the title of admiral and
allowed to dress in silks as a nobleman. King Henry gave him 10 pounds,
equal to $500 of modern money, and a pension of 20 pounds, equal to $1000
to-day. It is sometimes said that modern writers attribute an air of
romance to these old pathfinders, {5} which they would have scorned; but
"Zuan Cabot," as the people called him, wore the halo of glory with glee.
To his barber he presented an island kingdom; to a poor monk he gave a
bishopric. His son, Sebastian, sailed out the next year with a fleet of
six ships and three hundred men, coasting north as far as Greenland,
south as far as Carolina, so rendering doubly secure England's title to
the North, and bringing back news of the great cod banks that were to
lure French and Spanish and English fishermen to Newfoundland for
hundreds of years.
[Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT]
Where was Cabot's landfall?
I chanced to be in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, shortly after the 400th
anniversary of Cabot's voyage. King's Cove, landlocked as a hole in a
wall, mountains meeting sky line, presented on one flat rock in letters
the size of a house claim that it was _here_ John Cabot sent his sailors
ashore to plant the flag on cairn of bowlders; but when I came back from
Newfoundland by way of Cape Breton, I found the same claim there. For
generations the tradition has been handed down from father to son among
Newfoundland fisher folk that as Cabot's vessel, pitching and rolling to
the tidal bore, came scudding into King's Cove, rock girt as an inland
lake, the sailors shouted "Bona Vista--Beautiful View"; but Cape Breton
has her legend, too. It was Cabot's report of the cod banks that brought
the Breton fishermen out, whose name Cape Breton bears.
{6} As Christopher Columbus spurred England to action, so Cabot now
spurred Portugal and Spain and France.
Gaspar Cortereal comes in 1500 from Portugal on Cabot's tracks to that
land of "slaty rocks" which the Norse saw long ago. The Gulf Stream
beats the iron coast with a boom of thunder, and the tide swirl meets the
ice drift; and it isn't a land to make a treasure hunter happy till there
wander down to the shore Montaignais Indians, strapping fellows, a head
taller than the tallest Portuguese. Cortereal lands, lures fifty savages
on board, carries them home as slaves for Portugal's galley ships, and
names the country--"land of laborers"--Labrador. He sailed again, the
next year; but never returned to Portugal. The seas swallowed his
vessel; or the tide beat it to pieces against Labrador's rocks; of those
Indians slaked their vengeance by cutting the throats of master and crew.
And Spain was not idle. In 1513 Balboa leads his Spanish treasure
seekers across the Isthmus of Panama, discovers the Pacific, and realizes
what Cabot has already proved--that the New World is not a part of Asia.
Thereupon, in swelling words, he takes possession of "earth, air, and
water from the Pole Arctic to the Pole Antarctic" for Spain. A few years
later Magellan finds his way to Asia round South America; but this path
by sea is too long.
From France, Normans and Bretons are following Cabot's tracks to
Newfoundland, to Labrador, to Cape Breton, "quhar men goeth a-fishing" in
little cockleshell boats no bigger than three-masted schooner, with
black-painted dories dragging in tow or roped on the rolling decks.
Absurd it is, but with no blare of trumpets or royal commissions, with no
guide but the wander spirit that lured the old Vikings over the rolling
seas, these grizzled peasants flock from France, cross the Atlantic, and
scatter over what were then chartless waters from the Gulf of St.
Lawrence to the Grand Banks.
Just as they may be seen to-day bounding over the waves in their little
black dories, hauling in . . . hauling in the endless line, or jigging
for squid, or lying at ease at the noonday hour {7} singing some old land
ballad while the kettle of cod and pork boils above a chip fire kindled
on the stones used as ballast in their boats--so came the French fisher
folk three years after Cabot had discovered the Grand Banks. Denys of
Honfleur has led his fishing fleet all over the Gulf of St. Lawrence by
1506. So has Aubert of Dieppe. By 1517, fifty French vessels yearly
fish off the coast of New-Found-Land. By 1518 one Baron de Lery has
formed the project of colonizing this new domain; but the baron's ship
unluckily came from the Grand Banks to port on that circular bank of sand
known as Sable Island--from twenty to thirty miles as the tide shifts the
sand, with grass waist high and a swampy lake in the middle. The Baron
de Lery unloads his stock on Sable island and roves the sea for a better
port.
The King of France, meanwhile, resents the Pope dividing the New World
between Spain and Portugal. "I should like to see the clause in Father
Adam's will that gives the whole earth to you," he sent word to his
brother kings. Verrazano, sea rover of Florence, is commissioned to
explore the New World seas; but Verrazano goes no farther north in 1524
than Newfoundland, and when he comes on a second voyage he is lost--some
say hanged as a pirate by the Spaniards for intruding on their seas.
In spite of the loss of the King's sea rover, the fisher folk of France
continue coming in their crazy little schooners, continue fishing in the
fogs of the Grand Banks from their rocking black-planked dories, continue
scudding for shelter from storm . . . here, there, everywhere; into the
south shore of Newfoundland; into the long arms of the sea at Cape
Breton, dyed at sundawn and sunset by such floods of golden light, these
arms of the sea become known as Bras d'Or Lakes--Lakes of Gold; into the
rock-girt lagoons of Gaspé; into the holes in the wall of Labrador . . .;
till there presently springs up a secret trade in furs between the
fishing fleet and the Indians. The King of France is not to be balked by
one failure. "What," he asked, "are my royal brothers to have _all_
America?" Among the Bank fishermen were many sailors of St. Malo.
Jacques Cartier, master pilot, {8} now forty years of age, must have
learned strange yarns of the New World from harbor folk. Indeed, he may
have served as sailor on the Banks. Him the King chose, with one hundred
and twenty men and two vessels, in 1534, to go on a voyage of discovery
to the great sea where men fished. Cartier was to find if the sea led to
China and to take possession of the countries for France. Captain,
masters, men, march to the cathedral and swear fidelity to the King. The
vessels sail on April 20, with the fishing fleet.
[Illustration: Jacques Cartier]
Piping winds carry them forward at a clipper pace. The sails scatter and
disappear over the watery sky line. In twenty days Cartier is off that
bold headland with the hole in the wall called Bona Vista. Ice is
running as it always runs there in spring. What with wind and ice,
Cartier deems it prudent to look for shelter. Sheering south among the
scarps at Catalina, where the whales blow and the seals float in
thousands {9} on the ice pans, Cartier anchors to take on wood and water.
For ten days he watches the white whirl driving south. Then the water
clears and his sails swing to the wind, and he is off to the north, along
that steel-gray shore of rampart rock, between the white-slab islands and
the reefy coast. Birds are in such flocks off Funk Island that the men
go ashore to hunt, as the fisher folk anchor for bird shooting to-day.
Higher rises the rocky sky line; barer the shore wall, with never a break
to the eye till you turn some jagged peak and come on one of those snug
coves where the white fisher hamlets now nestle. Reefs white as lace
fret line the coast. Lonely as death, bare as a block of marble, Gull
Island is passed where another crew in later years perish as castaways.
Gray finback whales flounder in schools. The lazy humpbacks lounge round
and round the ships, eyeing the keels curiously. A polar bear is seen on
an ice pan. Then the ships come to those lonely harbors north of
Newfoundland--Griguet and Quirpon and Ha-Ha-Bay, rock girt, treeless,
always windy, desolate, with an eternal moaning of the tide over the
fretful reefs.
[Illustration: WHERE THE FISHER HAMLETS NOW NESTLE, NEWFOUNDLAND]
{10} To the north, off a little seaward, is Belle Isle. Here, storm or
calm, the ocean tide beats with fury unceasing and weird reëchoing of
baffled waters like the scream of lost souls. It was sunset when I was
on a coastal ship once that anchored off Belle Isle, and I realized how
natural it must have been for Cartier's superstitious sailors to mistake
the moan of the sea for wild cries of distress, and the smoke of the
spray for fires of the inferno. To French sailors Belle Isle became Isle
of Demons. In the half light of fog or night, as the wave wash rises and
falls, you can almost see white arms clutching the rock.
As usual, bad weather caught the ships in Belle Isle Straits. Till the
9th of June brown fog held Cartier. When it lifted the tide had borne
his ships across the straits to Labrador at Castle Island, Château Bay.
Labrador was a ruder region than Newfoundland. Far as eye could scan
were only domed rocks like petrified billows, dank valleys moss-grown and
scrubby, hillsides bare as slate; "This land should not be called earth,"
remarked Cartier. "It is flint! Faith, I think this is the region God
gave Cain!" If this were Cain's realm, his descendants were "men of
might"; for when the Montaignais, tall and straight as mast poles, came
down to the straits, Cartier's little scrub sailors thought them giants.
Promptly Cartier planted the cross and took possession of Labrador for
France. As the boats coasted westward the shore rock turned to
sand,--huge banks and drifts and hillocks of white sand,--so that the
place where the ships struck across for the south shore became known as
Blanc Sablon (White Sand). Squalls drove Cartier up the Bay of Islands
on the west shore of Newfoundland, and he was amazed to find this arm of
the sea cut the big island almost in two. Wooded mountains flanked each
shore. A great river, amber with forest mold, came rolling down a deep
gorge. But it was not Newfoundland Cartier had come to explore; it was
the great inland sea to the west, and to the west he sailed.
July found him off another kind of coast--New Brunswick--forested and
rolling with fertile meadows. Down a broad shallow stream--the
Miramichi--paddled Indians waving furs {11} for trade; but wind
threatened a stranding in the shallows. Cartier turned to follow the
coast north. Denser grew the forests, broader the girths of the great
oaks, heavier the vines, hotter the midsummer weather. This was no land
of Cain. It was a new realm for France. While Cartier lay at anchor
north of the Miramichi, Indian canoes swarmed round the boats at such
close quarters the whites had to discharge a musket to keep the three
hundred savages from scrambling on decks. Two seamen then landed to
leave presents of knives and coats. The Indians shrieked delight, and,
following back to the ships, threw fur garments to the decks till
literally naked. On the 18th of July the heat was so intense that
Cartier named the waters Bay of Chaleur. Here were more Indians. At
first the women dashed to hiding in the woods, while the painted warriors
paddled out; but when Cartier threw more presents into the canoes, women
and children swarmed out singing a welcome. The Bay of Chaleur promised
no passage west, so Cartier again spread his sails to the wind and
coasted northward. The forests thinned. Towards Gaspé the shore became
rocky and fantastic. The inland sea led westward, but the season was far
advanced. It was decided to return and report to the King. Landing at
Gaspé on July 24, Cartier erected a cross thirty feet high with the words
emblazoned on a tablet, _Vive le Roi de France_. Standing about him were
the painted natives of the wilderness, one old chief dressed in black
bearskin gesticulating protest against the cross till Cartier explained
by signs that the whites would come again. Two savages were invited on
board. By accident or design, as they stepped on deck, their skiff was
upset and set adrift. The astonished natives found themselves in the
white men's power, but food and gay clothing allayed fear. They
willingly consented to accompany Cartier to France. Somewhere north of
Gaspé the smoke of the French fishing fleet was seen ascending from the
sea, as the fishermen rocked in their dories cooking the midday meal.
August 9 prayers are held for safe return at Blanc Sablon,--port of the
white, white sand,--and by September 5 Cartier is {12} home in St. Malo,
a rabble of grizzled sailor folk chattering a welcome from the wharf
front.
He had not found passage to China, but he had found a kingdom; and the
two Indians told marvelous tales of the Great River to the West, where
they lived, of mines, of vast unclaimed lands.
Cartier had been home only a month when the Admiral of France ordered him
to prepare for another voyage. He himself was to command the _Grand
Hermine_, Captain Jalobert the _Little Hermine_, and Captain Le Breton
the _Emerillon_. Young gentlemen adventurers were to accompany the
explorers. The ships were provisioned for two years; and on May 16,
1535, all hands gathered to the cathedral, where sins were confessed, the
archbishop's blessing received, and Cartier given a Godspeed to the music
of full choirs chanting invocation. Three days later anchors were
hoisted. Cannon boomed. Sails swung out; and the vessels sheered away
from the roadstead while cheers rent the air.
Head winds held the ship back. Furious tempests scattered the fleet. It
was July 17 before Cartier sighted the gull islands of Newfoundland and
swung up north with the tide through the brown fogs of Belle Isle Straits
to the shining gravel of Blanc Sablon. Here he waited for the other
vessels, which came on the 26th.
The two Indians taken from Gaspé now began to recognize the headlands of
their native country, telling Cartier the first kingdom along the Great
River was Saguenay, the second Canada, the third Hochelaga. Near Mingan,
Cartier anchored to claim the land for France; and he named the great
waters St. Lawrence because it was on that saint's day he had gone
ashore. The north side of Anticosti was passed, and the first of
September saw the three little ships drawn up within the shadow of that
somber gorge cut through sheer rock where the Saguenay rolls sullenly out
to the St. Lawrence. The mountains presented naked rock wall. Beyond,
rolling back . . . rolling back to an impenetrable wilderness . . . were
the primeval {13} forests. Through the canyon flowed the river, dark and
ominous and hushed. The men rowed out in small boats to fish but were
afraid to land.
As the ships advanced up the St. Lawrence the seamen could scarcely
believe they were on a river. The current rolled seaward in a silver
flood. In canoes paddling shyly out from the north shore Cartier's two
Indians suddenly recognized old friends, and whoops of delight set the
echoes ringing.
Keeping close to the north coast, russet in the September sun, Cartier
slipped up that long reach of shallows abreast a low-shored wooded island
so laden with grapevines he called it Isle Bacchus. It was the Island of
Orleans.
Then the ships rounded westward, and there burst to view against the high
rocks of the north shore the white-plumed shimmering cataract of
Montmorency leaping from precipice to river bed with roar of thunder.
Cartier had anchored near the west end of Orleans Island when there came
paddling out with twelve canoes, Donnacona, great chief of Stadacona,
whose friendship was won on the instant by the tales Cartier's Indians
told of France and all the marvels of the white man's world.
Cartier embarked with several young officers to go back with the chief;
and the three vessels were cautiously piloted up little St. Charles
River, which joins the St. Lawrence below the modern city of Quebec.
Women dashed to their knees in water to welcome ashore these gayly
dressed newcomers with the gold-braided coats and clanking swords.
Crossing the low swamp, now Lower Town, Quebec, the adventurers followed
a path through the forest up a steep declivity of sliding stones to the
clear high table-land above, and on up the rolling slopes to the airy
heights of Cape Diamond overlooking the St. Lawrence like the turret of
some castle above the sea. Did a French soldier, removing his helmet to
wipe away the sweat of his arduous climb, cry out "Que bec" (What a
peak!) as he viewed the magnificent panorama of river and valley and
mountain rolling from his feet; or did their Indian guide point to the
water of the river narrowing like {14} a strait below the peak, and
mutter in native tongue, "Quebec" (The strait)? Legend gives both
explanations of the name. To the east Cartier could see far down the
silver flood of the St. Lawrence halfway to Saguenay; to the south, far
as the dim mountains of modern New Hampshire. What would the King of
France have thought if he could have realized that his adventurers had
found a province three times the size of England, one third larger than
France, one third larger than Germany? And they had as yet reached only
one small edge of Canada, namely Quebec.
Heat haze of Indian summer trembled over the purple hills. Below, the
river quivered like quicksilver. In the air was the nutty odor of dried
grasses, the clear tang of coming frosts crystal to the taste as water;
and if one listened, almost listened to the silence, one could hear above
the lapping of the tide the far echo of the cataract. To Cartier the
scene might have been the airy fabric of some dream world; but out of
dreams of earth's high heroes are empires made.
But the Indians had told of that other kingdom, Hochelaga. Hither
Cartier had determined to go, when three Indians dressed as devils--faces
black as coals, heads in masks, brows adorned with elk horns--came
gyrating and howling out of the woods on the mountain side, making wild
signals to the white men encamped on the St. Charles. Cartier's
interpreters told him this was warning from the Indian god not to ascend
the river. The god said Hochelaga was a realm of snow, where all white
men would perish. It was a trick to keep the white men's trade for
themselves.
Cartier laughed.
"Tell them their god is an old fool," he said. "Christ is to be our
guide."
The Indians wanted to know if Cartier had spoken to his God about it.
"No," answered Cartier. Then, not to be floored, he added, "but my
priest has."
{15} With three cheers, fifty young gentlemen sheered out on September 19
from the St. Charles on the _Emerillon_ to accompany Cartier to Hochelaga.
[Illustration: ANCIENT HOCHELAGA. (From Ramusio)]
Beyond Quebec the St. Lawrence widened like a lake. September frosts had
painted the maples in flame. Song birds, the glory of the St. Lawrence
valley, were no longer to be heard, but the waters literally swarmed with
duck and the forests were alive with partridge. Where to-day nestle
church spires and whitewashed hamlets were the birch wigwams and night
camp fires of Indian hunters. Wherever Cartier went ashore, Indians
rushed knee-deep to carry him from the river; and one old chief at
Richelieu signified his pleasure by presenting the whites with two Indian
children. Zigzagging leisurely, now along the north shore, now along the
south, pausing to hunt, pausing to explore, pausing to powwow with the
Indians, the adventurers came, on September 28, to the reedy shallows and
breeding grounds of wild fowl at Lake St. Peter. Here they were so close
ashore the _Emerillon_ caught her keel in the weeds, and the explorers
left her aground under guard and went forward in rowboats.
{16} "Was this the way to Hochelaga?" the rowers asked Indians paddling
past.
"Yes, three more sleeps," the Indians answered by the sign of putting the
face with closed eyes three times against their hand; "three more nights
would bring Cartier to Hochelaga"; and on the night of the 2d of October
the rowboats, stopped by the rapids, pulled ashore at Hochelaga amid a
concourse of a thousand amazed savages.
It was too late to follow the trail through the darkening forest to the
Indian village. Cartier placed the soldiers in their burnished armor on
guard and spent the night watching the council fires gleam from the
mountain. And did some soldier standing sentry, watching the dark shadow
of the hill creep longer as the sun went down, cry out, "Mont Royal," so
that the place came to be known as Montreal?
At peep of dawn, while the mist is still smoking up from the river,
Cartier marshals twenty seamen with officers in military line, and, to
the call of trumpet, marches along the forest trail behind Indian guides
for the tribal fort. Following the river, knee-deep in grass, the French
ascend the hill now known as Notre Dame Street, disappear in the hollow
where flows a stream,--modern Craig Street,--then climb steeply through
the forests to the plain now known as the great thoroughfare of
Sherbrooke Street. Halfway up they come on open fields of maize or
Indian corn. Here messengers welcome them forward, women singing,
tom-tom beating, urchins stealing fearful glances through the woods. The
trail ends at a fort with triple palisades of high trees, walls separated
by ditches and roofed for defense, with one carefully guarded narrow
gate. Inside are fifty large wigwams, the oblong bark houses of the
Huron-Iroquois, each fifty feet long, with the public square in the
center, or what we would call the courtyard.
It needs no trick of fancy to call up the scene--the winding of the
trumpet through the forest silence, the amazement of the Indian drummers,
the arrested frenzy of the dancers, the sunrise turning burnished armor
to fire, the clanking of swords, {17} the wheeling of the soldiers as
they fall in place, helmets doffed, round the council fire! Women swarm
from the long houses. Children come running with mats for seats.
Bedridden, blind, maimed are carried on litters, if only they may touch
the garments of these wonderful beings. One old chief with skin like
crinkled leather and body gnarled with woes of a hundred years throws his
most precious possession, a headdress, at Cartier's feet.
Poor Cartier is perplexed. He can but read aloud from the Gospel of St.
John and pray Christ heal these supplicants. Then he showers presents on
the Indians, gleeful as children--knives and hatchets and beads and tin
mirrors and little images and a crucifix, which he teaches them to kiss.
Again the silver trumpet peals through the aisled woods. Again the
swords clank, and the adventurers take their way up the mountain--a Mont
Royal, says Cartier.
The mountain is higher than the one at Quebec. Vaster the view--vaster
the purple mountains, the painted forests, the valleys bounded by a sky
line that recedes before the explorer as the rainbow runs from the grasp
of a child. This is not Cathay; it is a New France. Before going back
to Quebec the adventurers follow a trail up the St. Lawrence far enough
to see that Lachine Rapids bar progress by boat; far enough, too, to see
that the Gaspé Indians had spoken truth when they told of another grand
river--the Ottawa--coming in from the north.
By the 11th of October Cartier is at Quebec. His men have built a
palisaded fort on the banks of the St. Charles. The boats are beached.
Indians scatter to their far hunting grounds. Winter sets in. Canadian
cold is new to these Frenchmen. They huddle indoors instead of keeping
vigorous with exercise. Ice hangs from the dismantled masts. Drifts
heap almost to top of palisades. Fear of the future falls on the crew.
Will they ever see France again? Then scurvy breaks out. The fort is
prostrate. Cartier is afraid to ask aid of the wandering Indians lest
they learn his weakness. To keep up show of strength he has his men fire
off muskets, batter the fort walls, march and drill and {18} tramp and
stamp, though twenty-five lie dead and only four are able to keep on
their feet. The corpses are hidden in snowdrifts or crammed through ice
holes in the river with shot weighted to their feet.
In desperation Cartier calls on all the saints in the Christian calendar.
He erects a huge crucifix and orders all, well and ill, out in
procession. Weak and hopeless, they move across the snows chanting
psalms. That night one of the young noblemen died. Toward spring an
Indian was seen apparently recovering from the same disease. Cartier
asked him what had worked the cure and learned of the simple remedy of
brewed spruce juice.
By the time the Indians came from the winter hunt Cartier's men were in
full health. Up at Hochelaga a chief had seized Cartier's gold-handled
dagger and pointed up the Ottawa whence came ore like the gold handle.
Failing to carry any minerals home, Cartier felt he must have witnesses
to his report. The boats are rigged to sail, Chief Donnacona and eleven
others are lured on board, surrounded, forcibly seized, and treacherously
carried off to France. May 6, 1536, the boats leave Quebec, stopping
only for water at St. Pierre, where the Breton fishermen have huts. July
16 they anchor at St. Malo.
Did France realize that Cartier had found a new kingdom? Not in the
least; but the home land gave heed to that story of minerals, and had the
kidnapped Indians baptized. Donnacona and all his fellow-captives but
the little girl of Richelieu die, and Sieur de Roberval is appointed lord
paramount of Canada to equip Cartier with five vessels and scour the
jails of France for colonists. Though the colonists are convicts, the
convicts are not criminals. Some have been convicted for their religion,
some for their politics. What with politics and war, it is May, 1541,
before the ships sail, and then Roberval has to wait another year for his
artillery, while Cartier goes ahead to build the forts.
From the first, things go wrong. Head winds prolong the passage for
three months. The stock on board is reduced to a diet of cider, and half
the cattle die. Then the Indians of Quebec {19} ask awkward questions
about Donnacona. Cartier flounders midway between truth and lie.
Donnacona had died, he said; as for the others, they have become as white
men. Agona succeeds Donnacona as chief. Agona is so pleased at the news
that he gives Cartier a suit of buckskin garnished with wampum, but the
rest of the Indians draw off in such resentment that Cartier deems it
wise to build his fort at a distance, and sails nine miles up to Cape
Rouge, where he constructs Bourg Royal. Noel, his nephew, and Jalobert,
his brother-in-law, take two ships back to France. While Cartier roams
exploring, Beaupré commands Bourg Royal.
In his roamings, ever with his eyes to earth for minerals, he finds
stones specked with mica, and false diamonds, whence the height above
Quebec is called Cape Diamond. It is enough. The crews spend the year
loading the ships with cargo of worthless stones, and set sail in May,
high of hope for wealth great as Spaniard carried from Peru. June 8 the
ships slip in to St. John's, Newfoundland, for water. Seventeen fishing
vessels rock to the tide inside the landlocked lagoon, and who comes
gliding up the Narrows of the harbor neck but Viceroy Roberval, mad with
envy when he hears of the diamond cargoes! He breaks the head of a
Portuguese or two among the fishing fleet and forthwith orders Cartier
back to Quebec.
Cartier shifts anchor from too close range of Roberval's guns and says
nothing. At dead of night he slips anchor altogether and steals away on
the tide, with only one little noiseless sail up on each ship through the
dark Narrows. Once outside, he spreads his wings to the wind and is off
for France. The diamonds prove worthless, but Cartier receives a title
and retires to a seigneurial mansion at St. Malo.
The episode did not improve Roberval's temper. The new Viceroy was a
soldier and a martinet, and his authority had been defied. With his two
hundred colonists, taken from the prisons of France, commanded by young
French officers,--a Lament and a La Salle among others,--he proceeded up
the coast of Newfoundland to enter the St. Lawrence by Belle Isle. {20}
Among his people were women, and Roberval himself was accompanied by a
niece, Marguerite, who had the reputation of being a bold horsewoman and
prime favorite with the grandees who frequented her uncle's castle.
Perhaps Roberval had brought her to New France to break up her attachment
for a soldier. Or the Viceroy may have been entirely ignorant of the
romance, but, anchored off Belle Isle,--Isle of Demons,--the angry
governor made an astounding discovery. The girl had a lover on board, a
common soldier, and the two openly defied his interdict. Coming after
Cartier's defection, the incident was oil to fire with Roberval. Sailors
were ordered to lower the rowboat. One would fain believe that the
tyrannical Viceroy offered the high-spirited girl at least the choice of
giving up her lover. She was thrust into the rowboat with a faithful old
Norman nurse. Four guns and a small supply of provisions were tossed to
the boat. The sailors were then commanded to row ashore and abandon her
on Isle of Demons. The soldier lover leaped over decks and swam through
the surf to share her fate.
Isle of Demons, with its wailing tides and surf-beaten reefs, is a
desolate enough spot in modern days when superstitions do not add to its
terrors. The wind pipes down from The Labrador in fairest weather with
weird voices as of wailing ghosts, and in winter the shores of Belle Isle
never cease to echo to the hollow booming of the pounding surf.
Out of driftwood the castaways constructed a hut. Fish were in plenty,
wild fowl offered easy mark, and in springtime the ice floes brought down
the seal herds. There was no lack of food, but rescue seemed forever
impossible; for no fishing craft would approach the demon-haunted isle.
A year passed, two years,--a child was born. The soldier lover died of
heartbreak and despondency. The child wasted away. The old nurse, too,
was buried. Marguerite was left alone to fend for herself and hope
against hope that some of the passing sails would heed her signals. No
wonder at the end of the third year she began to hear shrieking laughter
in the lonely cries of tide and wind, and to imagine that she saw
fiendish arms snatching through the spume of storm drift.
{21} Towards the fall of 1545, one calm day when spray for the once did
not hide the island, some fishermen in the straits noticed the smoke of a
huge bonfire ascending from Isle Demons. Was it a trick of the fiends to
lure men to wreck, or some sailors like themselves signaling distress?
The boat drew fearfully near and nearer. A creature in the strange
attire of skins from wild beasts ran down the rocks, signaling
frantically. It was a woman. Terrified and trembling, the sailors
plucked up courage to land. Then for the first time Marguerite
Roberval's spirit gave way. She could not speak; she seemed almost
bereft of reason. It was only after the fishermen had nourished her back
to semblance of womanhood that they drew from her the story. On
returning to France, Marguerite Roberval entered a convent. It was there
an old court friend of her château days sought her out and heard the tale
from her own lips.
[Illustration: THE "DAUPHIN MAP" OF CANADA, _CIRCA_ 1543, SHOWING
CARTIER'S DISCOVERIES]
{22} A colony begun under such ill omen was not likely to prosper.
Roberval had proceeded to Cape Rouge, where he landed in July, and before
winter had a respectable fort constructed. Fifty of his colonists died
of scurvy. As many as six were hanged in a single day for
insubordination, and the whipping post became the emblem of an authority
that trembled in the balance. Roberval, in troth, was not thinking of
the colony. He was thinking of those minerals which the Indians said
were at the head waters of the Saguenay. Leaving thirty women at the
fort, he ascended the Saguenay with seventy men in spring and explored as
far as Lake St. John, where the village of Roberval commemorates his
feat; but he found no minerals and lost eight men running rapids. When
Cartier came out in 1543, Roberval took the remaining colonists home, a
profoundly embittered man. Legend has it that he either perished on a
second voyage in 1549, or was assassinated in Paris.
So falls the curtain on the first attempt to colonize Canada.
{23}